Any general tips on when to Hire?

[Cuthawolf]

I've restarted this game dozens of times over the years, and in the middle I tend to feel lost about how many people I should hire and when. I'm not looking for hard and fast numbers, but any general tips about when I should hire people would be great.

Thank you.

[Roland Deepson]

I'm pretty much just as mystified as you are, but I'm like 90% certain that hiring your first employee before having a live balance of 2.5m is suicide. I'm 75% sure that I need to wait until 5m before hiring my second, though I'm slogging through a new playthrough right now where I intend to try this. If that ends up working, my best guess on when to hire a third wouldn't be until at least 11.5m.

I base those numbers on the idea of having an operating cushion. Once I go into a loan / bailout spiral, I basically have a countdown that can only be stopped by scoring at least a combined 17 on any 3-consecutive titles (i.e. a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 4 could theoretically be carried by 2 6.5's, or a perfect 10 could replace two separate flops.)

That is what I need to RESET the countdown. Any time I get less than a combined 17-ish on a any 3 consecutive titles, my countdown runs lower. How long the countdown can be allowed to run before hitting zero (bankruptcy) depends on my monthly outlays. More employees, higher monthly outlay. So on a slim shop of 1 or 2 employees, I can handle some hardships -- I could reasonably expect to pump upwards of 5-7 titles while looking for my combined-17. With a crew of 5 or more? I might not even have time to try 3 titles -- anything less than an 8 on any single title is a death knell. If it's real bad, the only thing that'd help at all is a 9.5. This is for a few reasons, mostly because once I'm in the red, I can't count on having funds to run a campaign, I'll prolly have to pass on a G3 booth, researches and trainings are dangerous, and it'd even be a bad idea to allow any vacations or post-release analyses. That means, with no Hype score, even an 8.25 might still starve me out.

[[💚] Mafalda]

Personally, but maybe I play the game super oddly, I wait as loooooong as possible! Mostly because it's easier to manage smaller teams, so I only really hire when it feels like I can't keep making high quality games. 😅

[Cuthawolf]

Thanks guys, I much appreciate the advice :)

[Zangetsu]

my strat is to hire 2 people right away when its available, and then have 1 person work all 3 parts of a phase in a medium game for 100%. Do publishing deals until I get enough fans then I can self publish.

You can coast in this for a while, hire the other 2 when you feel secure enough then hire the last 2 specialists either focusing your studio on tech based games or design based game.

[J̴͖̎1̵̫̈3̶͓̈́2̸̛̩7̸]

Originally posted by 💚 Mafalda:

Like this person said , start small - end big.

[Amazing Sun]

I usually wait till i have 5 mil and hire two at once trying out med games

[Zaidos]

I went risky, hired 2 employees as soon as I moved from the garage, I struggled to stay above 250K in funds, until I made a hit game and made millions.

You can do it early, but you need to consistently make good games.

[C4uzi]

Hiring 2-3 with 3-4M in cash (in normal mode) and jumping straight into publishing deals can help you increase your fan base quite rapidly, just choose the "right deals" with 12%+ royalties, good combinations etc.

Also just a quick number, 440k for researching hires is usually the sweet spot to find decent/great employees. 1.1M hiring is the next "cap" if/when you can afford it.